The atmospheres created by different shades of white lighting (relaxation, energy, focus, etc.).

This had a major impact on how the app was structured, as it had been designed to revolve around colour. While Philips’ design team was already in the process of designing the new app, we designed another prototype app and tested both on users as far as China (there’s no such thing as 9-to-5 for Jungle Minds researchers).

The insights gained were applied straight away to the new design sprints, and (after three rounds of testing) the outcome was an app that was fully tailored to user needs.

An app that changed focus from colours to rooms

…The switch from thinking about rooms as “scenes” and actually as “rooms” is a very welcome change and really shows how cool smart lighting becomes once you’ve decked up all your major rooms with Hue.

John Jones in a comment posted on Wired.com.

The new Philips Hue app is based around rooms and ‘scenes’ rather than colour. You can now easily switch all lighting in a room on or off (even when you’re not home), and using custom presets, create an entirely different atmosphere in your room with a single switch.

Our results

Philips’ design team experienced the value of user insights throughout the development process.

Merging apps: Jungle Mind’s prototype and Philips’ own app were made into one ‘super app’.